Course Topics, Handouts and Readings for Each Topic

READINGS: Readings below include required readings for students in both WIS4554 and WIS5555c and additional required (and sometimes optional) readings for students in WIS5555c.

Readings are from textbook unless otherwise noted. Be sure to read the boxes (essays, case studies, etc.) within the assigned readings in the textbook. Links to the first few chapters of the textbook are provided in case you are not able to purchase the text book immediately. Please get the textbook as soon as possible so that you can keep up with the readings.

To access journal articles below, click on the pdf.

I would encourage all students to read all the literature provided. Included are classic papers that have had an important impact on the field of conservation biology and some studies that provide good examples of issues that we will discuss in class.

At least look over the Rabinowitz paper below. You may find the details a little tedious (unless you are interested in British plants). However, this is a very influential paper. This paper first pointed out the problem of rarity being defined in many different ways and redefined the way conservation biologists think about rarity. This paper stimulated analyses of rarity in many different ecosystems and with many different plant and animal groups. Notice that the paper is based on expert opinion not field data taken by the author!

Rabinowitz, D., S. Cairns, and T. Dillon. 1986. Seven forms of rarity and their frequency in the flora of the British Isles. Pages 182-204 in M.Soule, editor. Conservation Biology: the science of scarcity and diversity.pdf

Interesting web links:

SSC Red List - The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has developed a “Red” list of threatened and endangered species for countries throughout the world. This list has been influential in calling attention to the need for conservation of these species. Click on the Red List link and read through this webpage to get an idea of how the SSC Red List works.

Extinction Processes -- deterministic and stochastic

Chapter 12. Species and landscape approaches to conservation, pp. 419-424.

Essay 12.4. Landscape-level conservation for the sea, pp. 447-448. (Essay about penguin colony in Argentina that I will discuss in class.)

Grad students, if you have not had a course in conservation genetics, you also should read Chapter 11 in the book for background. If you wish, you may skip boxes 11.1 and 11.3. We will discuss effective population size (Box 11.2). You do not need to know the formulas for this class, but you should understand the concept.

Interesting web links:

Conservation International and WWF are two of the largest and most successful non-governmental conservation organizations working worldwide. Check out their programs focused on conserving biodiversity.

This short article, which demonstrates the importance of protected areas (sources) for maintenance of sustainable harvest of wildlife in surrounding areas (sinks) in the tropics, has had a significant impact on management of wildlife harvest in the tropics. Management plans now routinely incorporate areas where hunting as prohibited to serve as a source for hunted areas. Surprisingly, very few of the studies reviewed in this article recognized the key role of protected areas in maintaining wildlife populations that were hunted.

Metapopulation Research Group - This web page, from the University of Helsinki, Finland, is a rather technical but a fascinating site that provides information on metapopulation theory and research on many different topics related to metapopulations. The site was created by one of the most well-known research groups on metapopulations led by, Professor Ilkka Hanski. Check it out if you have time!

Habitat Fragmentation and Edge

The Laurance et al. papers present summaries of the results of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP) in the Brazilian Amazon, which is the largest scale and longest-running experimental study of forest fragmentation. The 2011 paper is the most up-to-date, of course, but I really like the presentation of edge effects in the 2002 paper. I will use graphs from that paper in class. You might want to have a look.

Perran Ross will argue that commercial exploitation of wildlife is one way to promote conservation. Your textbook presents many arguments regarding conservation problems associated with harvesting wildlife and other natural resources (e.g., tropical timber). Be prepared for a lively discussion!

If you are interested in tropical forests, read Case Study 8.3. (pp. 283-290). You may just skim the sections on "Biological Theory of Sustainable Exploitation" and "Comparisons of Methods for Calculating Sustainable Yields" (pp. 265-276). Hopefully you have covered this in other courses such as Population Ecology.

The following two papers are optional reading but you might want to have a look at them. I will discuss aspects of the Williams and Marcot analysis in class.

The paper by Williams and Marcot (1991) is an example of the hierarchical approach described by Noss (1990). This paper is interesting because the planning team carefully considers management goals before setting up indicators for the Klamath National Forest. They also choose some interesting indicators that have direct implications for management. For example, they use density of roads as a surrogate for invasive species because roads are known to influence rates of invasion. Logging practices strongly influence road density. The The TNC Viability Worksheet presents more detail on how TNC evaluates threats to species.

Williams, B. L. and B. G. Marcot. 1991. Use of biodiversity indicators for analyzing and managing forest landscapes. Transactions of the 56th North American Wildlife and Natural Resource Conference. Pp. 613-627. .pdf

Sea otters are one of the most well-studied keystone species. The Estes et al. paper on killer whale predation is very interesting. They suggest that a cascade of events beginning with over-harvest of fish has led to increased predation by killer whales on sea otters, and because sea otters are a keystone species, this is resulting in major changes in the marine environment.

If you plan to work with biological aspects of conservation, you should read the article by Power et al. below. This article is the classic paper that defined keystone species as we use the term now. If you plan to work more with the human aspects of conservation and only need a broad overview of keystone species and species interactions, you may wish to read one of the Soulé papers under optional reading instead.

Power et al. 1996. Challenges in the quest for keystones. Bioscience 46(8):609-620. .pdf

Other optional readings:

The Soule et al. articles discuss the need to consider ecological role of species in policy and conservation planning. They are thought provoking!

National strategy for dealing with invasive species - This site has a lot of information on invasive species, including the National Invasive Species Management Plan. Looking through the many links on this page will provide you with an overview of the enormous problem that introduced species have become and some national efforts aimed at dealing with these problems. Spend some time going through this for your own education!